Towing a travel trailer with a truck camper?

KD4UPL wrote:
What you want to do will certainly work but you're highly underestimating your weights. I haven't seen any figures on the weight of the family but I would guess you're putting them all in the truck. At an average of 150 pounds a person that's 750 pounds right there. Add in all the gear that will likely be brought along, the TC, the tongue weight, etc. and you will wish you had a 3500 SRW truck at minimum. There's really no reason to buy a 2500 truck.

Right. I haven't really researched all the different brands. I'm kind of partial to Ford based on family history so I know more about them but I'm not fixated on Ford. I would definitely want to outfit any new truck for maximum payload and towing capacity possible with a SRW axle. So camper package, snowplow package, payload package, max tow package, whatever they call it and possibly swap out tires as well. If I bought new most definitely a F350 or equivalent. However my understanding is that there is often very little functional difference between F250 and F350 depending on the model year and package, sometimes as small of a difference as the block between the rear axle and spring. So if I was buying used I would probably spread my search to include properly outfitted F250 trucks just to have more options as there often aren't that many good F350 SRW trucks in the used market.

One way or the other, I'd be buying the most capable SRW truck I could find just to have as much extra capacity as I could buy, especially if the wife eventually decides we need a larger 5th wheel. I expect this is the forum to go back through and read for best advice on outfitting a truck properly.